St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­ja Ameen is call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port to host the nec­es­sary con­sul­ta­tions with res­i­dents on the Ma­coya In­ter­change. This comes af­ter Works Min­is­ter an­nounced that the in­ter­change would not be built on the cur­rent site that has been pro­posed but will be de­vel­oped fur­ther east.

In a press re­lease is­sued this af­ter­noon Ameen atat­ed that “It is fun­da­men­tal­ly un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic for a mul­ti­mil­lion dol­lar project to be planned with­out hav­ing some form of di­a­logue or con­sul­ta­tion with the res­i­dents who will be di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the planned Ma­coya In­ter­change Project.”

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from MP Ameen:

MP Khadi­jah Ameen is con­demn­ing the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan for his fail­ure to en­gage the elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives and stake­hold­ers be­fore an­nounc­ing con­struc­tion of the Ma­coya Over­pass. MP Ameen is call­ing on the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port to work through the elect­ed MP and host the nec­es­sary con­sul­ta­tions with the res­i­dents, busi­ness own­ers and her con­stituents who will be af­fect­ed. 
 
The Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port an­nounced that the in­ter­change for the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way in Ma­coya In­ter­change will not be built on the cur­rent site that has been pro­posed but will be de­vel­oped fur­ther east. He stat­ed that with this move, there is like­ly to be less ac­qui­si­tion of prop­er­ties to fa­cil­i­tate the con­struc­tion process and there will be less dis­rup­tion. 
 
How­ev­er, there have been no con­sul­ta­tion with res­i­dents of the St. Au­gus­tine con­stituen­cy where this project falls or with the elect­ed MP for this area, Khadi­jah Ameen. MP Ameen is ad­vo­cat­ing that “Con­sul­ta­tions must be con­duct­ed with the prop­er­ty own­ers as they will be di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by this in­ter­change; the res­i­dents, their MP, and the con­struc­tion team must be able to iden­ti­fy their con­cerns. The said per­sons must be al­lowed to con­sid­er and de­cide on an ac­cept­able and agree­able plan of ac­tion. 
 
MP Ameen, “It is fun­da­men­tal­ly un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic for a mul­ti­mil­lion dol­lar project to be planned with tax­pay­ers dol­lars, with­out hav­ing some form of di­a­logue or con­sul­ta­tion with the res­i­dents who will be di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the planned Ma­coya In­ter­change Project. These res­i­dents may be forcibly up­root­ed and re­lo­cat­ed from their homes. These res­i­dents are not voice­less or mute, and de­serve the op­por­tu­ni­ty for their con­cerns to be heard and ad­dressed.” 
 
MP Ameen in­di­cat­ed that a few very fran­tic con­stituents al­so con­tact­ed her over the last two days as of­fi­cials were con­duct­ing a house to house sur­vey in St. Au­gus­tine South area and they were in­formed of plans to put an ad­di­tion­al lane on the west­bound side of the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way which may dis­place some of them. They were not in­formed whether this is part of the Ma­coya In­ter­change project. MP Ameen said the res­i­dents are scared and con­fused as this is rem­i­nis­cent of a sim­i­lar threat they faced with the PNM’s now scrapped Rapid Rail project when res­i­dents of St. Au­gus­tine South were told they would be re­lo­cat­ed with­out prop­er con­sul­ta­tion. As the MP for the area, Miss Ameen is call­ing for open di­a­logue to en­sure pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness, “fair and prop­er pro­ce­dures must be used when mak­ing these de­ci­sions.”
 
Miss Ameen stat­ed that she want­ed to re­mind Min­is­ter Sinanan that this is not PNM coun­try and that Ma­coya in­ter­sec­tion falls in St. Au­gus­tine con­stituen­cy and she will be stand­ing in the in­ter­est of the con­stituents as the du­ly elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive and in the in­ter­est of all con­cerned, she awaits word from him on be­half of the con­stituents of St. Au­gus­tine. MP Ameen re­it­er­ates that she is in full sup­port of de­vel­op­ment and progress but those af­fect­ed must be en­gaged.